About “Control”

“Control” is a braggadocious attempt to revitalize the competitive spirit of the rap game.

Kendrick Lamar sent shockwaves across the internet with his verse that name-drops and takes no prisoners. His bold claims and aggressive spitting led to an onslaught of response tracks and interviews from rappers looking to prove themselves or inspired to step up their game.

Why does Kendrick claim to be the king of New York if he's from Compton?

The irony of that line is that the people who actually understood it and got it were the actual Kings of New York, you know, me sitting down with them this past week, and them understanding, it’s not actually about being the king of whatever coast, it’s about leaving a mark as big as BIG, as big as Pac.

What have the artists said about the song?

I knew what it was. I knew what it was for the culture of hip hop. You see how excited people are […] I wanted to do that for music, make that play happen. It gave me the feeling of how hip hop was, how it used to be.

When I went in and did the verse, I thought I was just having fun. […] But I see how the world took it and flipped the media. I realized, okay, it has been ten, fifteen years before it’s been some type of shaking up in the game.

I had a conversation with Sean towards the end of his album. I told him, I felt like he needed to do some straight, hardcore hip-hop records. Sometimes we focus so much on selling records that we leave some artistic points uncovered.

I had this beat. I had actually done it for Jay, right before I let [Sean] hear it. I said, “You should take this beat, I think it would be great for you to show up on one of these beats, forget money, forget everything.”

For a while—I’d say, since Common’s “Ghetto Dreams”—I’ve been on a hip-hop crusade. To try and just bring that energy back that I felt was not present. I just wanted him to show up on one of those beats and then he did a freestyle to it.

He was like, “I’m gonna drop it as a freestyle.” I was like cool. Then he was like, “Yo, I’m gonna get Jay Electronica on it.” I was like, “Okay, cool.” Anyway, that’s where “No I.D. (Freestyle)” comes from, it was a No I.D. beat and he was freestyling. It didn’t have a chorus, it wasn’t intended to be a full song even.